Today I was reading about the passing of two of my heroes-kinda mine. John McCain who I so admired for his honor, his scrappiness and frankness in honest disagreements-I like that quality-just a number of things. Didn’t agree about everything politically, who cares. And Aretha Franklin. I remember first really noticing her as I sat with my brother in front of the TV watching probably Ed Sullivan or the Oscars or..something where she sang. My brother just breathed out the word “ARETHA.” and I sat up and took notice. If Donald loved it, of course, I did-of course and rightfully so. Then I had this great roommate who became a dear lifelong friend, Beverly. She had lived in Chicago to go to art school, and had gotten into soul music big time. She would play stuff for me and I was totally hooked all over again-and have been since. And Aretha was the QUEEN for me, later joined by Patti LaBelle. My daughter Suzie grew up hearing Aretha-among others-on cassette in our car.
I thought about these greats and how deaths of greats usually come in threes-and I realized that it had. The third was Sadie, my great dog. If you feel odd about me saying this, you don’t know me and you sure don’t know my Sadie. Let me help you here.
Sadie’s beginning, as I understand it, was as a purchased puppy for a family. Sadie is high energy, very enthusiastic and vocal. She is a kelpie border collie mix, as far as we can see, and was marketed as a border collie. Kelpies are very smart, very vocal-lots of barking. There is a legend that kelpies originated from the banished Irish who were sent to Australian penal colonies, who took their families and their dogs with them-the dogs mated with the wild dingos and KELPIES happened. I totally believe this after Sadie. Border Collies are not so vocal. The lady who got Sadie evidently decided that it was too much work and to just shut up this dog in a dark garage in a crate for the first section of her life. Even typing that sentence hurts me. Special place in Hell, lady. ANYHOW, this awful woman had a co-worker who knew she was awful and one day she complained to this co-worker about this dog and said that she was going to take this dog to the pound to be put to sleep after work. This amazing co-worker who loved dogs said “oh, maybe I want your dog-can I see this dog at lunch?” Went to see and took Sadie immediately, knowing that she probably couldn’t keep her – she was newly married and her husband had two elderly dogs who probably couldn’t stand the stress of a lively pup–but I AM SO GRATEFUL TO HER that she acted first to get this angel away from the terrible woman and thought later. I wish I had kept her info, so I could write a note and tell her. Anyhow, she found out from someone I knew from the past that I had border collies and she got my number. She called and told me about this dog. I talked about the rest of this in my first post.
So, Hero Thing #1 out of a zillion Hero Things that Sadie had in her–Sadie could have, should have, hated people, especially women, after her experience. NOPE. Sadie so loved people. It was a bit of a problem to keep on a schedule with her for appointments and work and and. If she saw someone she knew on our way to the elevator to go back in and get ready for us to go to work or where ever we were going–well, we were going to greet that friend even if she didn’t know them yet and allow that person the honor of petting Sadie, which of course everyone did. She loved to go walking in places where people were, like downtown Ventura and The Collection center in Oxnard, so she could greet anyone who would pass by. Of course if they had a dog with them, we were going to have to do the bark bark BARK and a bit of lunge thrown in just for flair–but she would love to greet the person. People would mention how pretty she was as we walked by and children would react happily, as if picking up on Sadie’s vibe of love. I will never forget one little tiny girl’s reaction to Sadie. Parents would often say “can he/she pet your dog?” and we always did that, in a public service effort to teach little ones where to pet a dog and how softly. A Hispanic family coming to walk at the beach had a little darling girl by the hand, and she wanted to see Sadie. I helped her to gently pet Sadie, and then before she walked on with her family, she bent over and kissed Sadie on the back so sweetly. It so touched me and I know Sadie loved it too.
Sadie had a thing about other dogs. I am not sure that she had it as much when we lived on 1/3 of an acre with a big yard. I think it started when we moved to the condo in a gated community. I think possibly that she thought of the entire condo area and the beach as HERS and what the hell was this dog/dogs doing in her yard? Maybe. We worked on it with trainers and worked on it ourselves-but she never stopped the bark bark BARK and a bit of lunge thrown in for flair toward other dogs-although it calmed down over the years. I actually secretly liked it after a while, as I felt protected and also because it showed her continued sass. In smaller contained areas she could totally cause a riot and that was irritating sometimes, and I know I sent mixed signals to her-enjoying her barking sometimes and telling her to knock it off other times. I told her that I knew I was confusing and I was sorry about that. I think she knew that pretty much it was fine with me for her to bark. I read in some dog magazine some years ago that barking was a stress release for dogs and that they liked doing it–and I always felt that Sadie deserved every ounce of enjoyment in her life because her first few months of her life were shitty. Yes I am the guilt fairy. When we had her for a few days with our other two dogs, I was so unaccustomed to lots of barking that I went online and connected with a woman in New Zealand who raised Kelpies to find out what was going on. She assured me that kelpies unlike border collies were barkers and that having a litter of them was deafening at her house. Also, interesting was her affect on Keiligh, who had become her mentor/mommy. (Maggie was the pack leader). Keiligh barked quite a bit on walks at other dogs and could be loud. Tim thinks that Maggie did this also at the beginning. After a bit, Keiligh stopped doing the barking and let Sadie do all the barking for her. Tim says that Maggie did the same when Keiligh came along. Tim also says that Maggie and then Keiligh just saw how stupid they looked barking like that and stopped. I don’t think so. These guys are so great, right? They train each other, they give each other jobs to do, and we just stand by saying “okay that works” -because it so did. We know that Maggie used to send Keiligh to tell us something-time for dinner, something is wrong, Maggie needs you. And Sadie WAS Keiligh’s job. Keiligh had a way of baring her teeth, growling and shoving her face right up alongside Sadie’s face when Sadie needed a Word of Correction. It was downright scary. Sadie would YES MA’AM right back to Keiligh-not daring to look at Keiligh, eyes straight ahead- and never do that again, whatever it was. It was amazing to see.
So, Sadie’s #1 Hero Thing was that she loved people, even though she had reason not to.
Tomorrow it is on to Sadie the Brave, my Hero. Stay tuned. And yes, we have been crying today still for the loss of our girl. It’s going to be a long time before we don’t and that is okay. That is what you do when you have had the amazing luck to be with a dog like Sadie and yes, also our Maggie and Keiligh–but they really belonged to Suzie. Sadie was ours and we are hers heart and soul.
Remembering Sadie 